Book picks similar to
Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser by Joe Bonadonna
fantasy
sword-and-sorcery
fiction-fantasy-and-science-fiction
fantasy-sci-fi
The Kinshield Legacy
K.C. May - 2005
The kingdom is in ruins, with only warrant knights to keep the peace. But then, the gems in the tablet, one by one, disappear. Warrant knight Gavin Kinshield is a man of many secrets. He's the one deciphering the runes in the tablet. Unless he can find a suitable replacement, he'll be Thendylath's next king. All he really wants is the letter written by his ancestor Ronor Kinshield, champion to King Arek, confessing the truth of how the king perished.Daia Saberheart, warrior of the Viragon Sisterhood, wants to find the future king and help him claim his rightful place. Blacksmith Risan Stronghammer wants to reward him with a powerful weapon.And the sorcerer Brodas Ravenkind wants to capture him, steal his secret and claim the throne for himself.But when Gavin finally tracks down Ronor's letter, he gets far more than he's bargained for, for the truth of King Arek's demise is far darker than he ever imagined.________________________________
Taming Fire
Aaron Pogue - 2011
He's the son of a known thief, disgraced and despised. His only real talent is his ability with a sword, and his only real chance at finding honor or a home is a desperate dream of joining the King's Guard.Then Daven receives a new future when Master Claighan invites him to study magic at the Academy. The wizard offers to make him into a new kind of soldier: a swordsman equally skilled with forged blades and mystic forces. It only helps that Daven has no home, no family, and nothing left to lose.But when conspiring forces destroy the wizard's plans, Daven finds himself wanted for treason and murder. Hunted by a great black beast of a dragon, caught between the King's Guard and a rebel force led by a rogue wizard, Daven's only hope of surviving is to become more than he's ever dreamed possible.
Fostering Faust: Compilation: Rebirth
Randi Darren - 2019
Please read all the way through.)) Alex is dead. Dead, and apparently with a one way ticket to a place that only the worst of the worst go. All for a simple choice he made about a product his company owned. Damned for all time. Luckily for him, he’s about to be given a chance. Another choice to make. He can instead, return to the land of the living, though his soul would belong to another. Except the world he’s being sent to, isn’t the same one he came from. It’s not even a similar period in time, but from something long past in history. The dark ages. And part of the deal to live again, is to make pacts with others. Pacts that would bind others in secrecy. That they could never speak of what they'd done. Deals for anything, and everything. From things as simple as a meal, to their very lives. How much would you give of yourself to live on in the world is an easy question. The better question, is how much would you take from others? If Alex wants to keep living, to keep his soul from being sent to the darkest corner of hell, he’ll have to ask himself that question. Daily. Warning: This novel explores dark subjects, and what people will give up of themselves, and each other, to get what they want. The main character is written as a real person in a tough situation, and will not make choices that line up with societal and cultural norms. It contains adult themes and moral ambiguities. As with my previous work, explicit scenes are found within. It has violence and a harem relationship. This is the Omnibus edition of the 1st Fostering Faust Trilogy. It contains all three books of the first trilogy. Only the description of the first book has been included to prevent spoilers from occurring. (Product Page for Book 1: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...) (Product Page for Book 2: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...) (Product Page for Book 3: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...)
A Crown for Cold Silver
Alex Marshall - 2015
One legendary general. A final quest for vengeance.Twenty years ago, feared general Cobalt Zosia led her five villainous captains and mercenary army into battle, wrestling monsters and toppling an empire. When there were no more titles to win and no more worlds to conquer, she retired and gave up her legend to history.Now the peace she carved for herself has been shattered by the unprovoked slaughter of her village. Seeking bloody vengeance, Zosia heads for battle once more, but to find justice she must confront grudge-bearing enemies, once-loyal allies, and an unknown army that marches under a familiar banner.
Automatic Reload
Ferrett Steinmetz - 2020
He's your solider's solider, with military-grade weapons instead of arms...and a haunted past that keeps him awake at night. On a mission that promises the biggest score of his life, he discovers that the top secret shipment he's been sent to guard is not a package, but a person: Silvia.Silvia is genetically-altered to be the deadliest woman on the planet--her only weakness is her panic disorder. When Mat decides to free her, both of them become targets of the most powerful shadow organization in the world. They go on the lam, determined to stop a sinister plot to create more super assassins like Silvia. Between bloody gunfights, rampant car chases and drone attacks, Mat and Silvia team up to survive...and unexpectedly realize their messed up brain-chemistry cannot overpower their very real chemistry.Automatic Reload is the genre's most unexpectedly heartfelt romantic comedy with explosions, perfect for fans of both Die Hard and Mr. and Mrs. Smith."Steinmetz has mixed fast-paced shoot-em-up violence with a compassionate treatment of trauma and mental illness to create an engaging page-turner. Like Shadowrun with a conscience."-- Hugo Award-winning author Jim. C Hines "Automatic Reload is for everyone who ever wished the Transformers movies were less Michael Bay, more transformation sequences; it luxuriates in the intricate beauty that is technology, exults in the mechanics of cyberpunk. And it does all this while being a rom-com with a lot of explosions." --Cassandra Khaw, finalist for the British Fantasy and Locus Awards for Hammers on Bone
Happily Evan After
Michelle Irwin - 2014
Despite initial hesitancy, he has learned to handle every case with care and he now basks in the afterglow of new-found love and relishes in the energy it provides him. But his end goal is still the promise of paradise in return for his penance.It's all going according to plan until he receives an assignment that is inconceivable to him. He has to find a mate for Becca, within whom lives the reincarnated soul of his one true love. Bound by his duty to find her a match, he must resist her charm and suppress his own desires. It is his job and he cannot fail, even if his own paradise now seems lost.For a cupid, falling in love is against the rules.Isn't it?
Lintang and the Pirate Queen
Tamara Moss - 2017
She gets her chance when she and her best friend, Bayani, face a deadly mythie and survive, attracting the attention of the infamous Captain Shafira. Lintang’s bravery earns her an invitation onto the ship of the pirate queen, who is on her way to hunt down a nest of vicious sirens. But they’ve barely left the island when Lintang discovers that Bayani has risked his life to stow away. Worse, he won’t tell her why. Lintang must choose whether to be loyal to Captain Shafira and continue with her adventures, or be loyal to her best friend and lose everything she’s ever wanted.
Sign for the Sacred
Storm Constantine - 1993
. . until he meets Jeopardy. Cleo is a child-bride of a poisoner, until one of Jeopardy's offspring is brought to her home for disposal and she falls in love with both the child and his father. . . Jeopardy. Delilah is orphaned when a berserker named Trajan attacks and kills everyone in her village. She is the only one who is immune to the plague that Trajan carries, and promises to watch over him as he returns to the sanctuary. . . of Jeopardy. Dauntless Javelot is a chivalrous knight of Ixmarity on his last campaign. . . until he joins Cleo on her journey to seek Jeopardy. Lord Pliance is a courtly vampire who accompanies the pilgrims in the hopes for a cure. . . from Jeopardy. And as they all seek the elusive Jeopardy, they are haunted by a ruthless adversary. Wilfish Implexion is an ecclesiarch in the Church of Ixmarity. Threatened by the power of the pagan Jeopardites, he will use any means possible to kill their prophet. . . Jeopardy! And what of Resenence Jeopardy himself? Is he all that he seems? What is the secret of his charismatic power. . . and what will he decide to do with it? This is the first U.S. edition of Sign for the Sacred, and includes a new introduction by the author. Also included is the original first draft of the beginning of the novel, when it was called "Prophet Dancer," as well as the first four chapters of an aborted sequel titled "Death by Sweetness."
Circle of Reign
Jacob Cooper - 2014
The Living Light Fades. An Ancient Darkness Awakens. The Living Light that sustains Arlethia is dwindling. An unknown, vicious enemy approaches in stealth from beyond the northern glaciers, a wasteland of ice that spans hundreds of miles. A clandestine brotherhood of assassins, held in check by the Light for millennia, seeks to break their maledictive shackles and unleash their bloodlust upon the world. Those that should stand with Arlethia clothe themselves in betrayal, desiring her secrets for themselves, leaving Arlethia to stand alone. The rebirthing of lands ceased decades ago. The world of Våleira is dying. Only Arlethia, the Western Province of the Realm, remains untainted by the Ancient Dark’s Influence. Reign, the young daughter of Arlethian Lord Thannuel Kerr, becomes entangled in a perilous web of deceit, greed, and assassination plots after witnessing something horrific – something that will destroy all she knows and loves. As threats culminate, she and her twin brother, Hedron, must battle demons on every side – both external and internal – in their efforts to save Arlethia from extinction, as they simultaneously reach for their own personal redemption. But they have become pariahs to their own people. There will be few that dare to stand with them in the dimming Light – and even fewer that will survive. The world of Våleira cannot endure without Arlethia. And the Living Light is fading ...
Brandon Sanderson Sampler: The Way of Kings and Mistborn
Brandon Sanderson - 2014
Brandon Sanderson is one of the most innovative and prolific authors writing today, and Tor Books is proud to share with you two of his most exciting series: The Stormlight Archive and Mistborn.This electronic sampler contains part one of The Way of Kings, book one in The Stormlight archive, and the first five chapters of Mistborn, book one of the Mistborn series.We hope that you'll enjoy this look into the rich imagination of #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson.
Unexpected Eden
Rhenna Morgan - 2014
Lexi Merrill’s about to learn they’re wrong. A hard-working bartender with a self-sufficient backbone and a wary nature, she knows pickup lines like a second language. So, when Eryx Shantos barges into her world with too-smooth words and a body to back it up, she locks up her libido and vows to keep her distance. Eryx has other ideas. As king of the Myren race, Eryx is duty-bound to enforce the laws preventing exposure of their existence to humans. Yet The Fates have led him through his dreams to Lexi, a temptation he doesn’t want to resist. The question--is she Myren, or human, which makes her forbidden fruit?When Eryx’s nemesis tags Lexi as his next target, Eryx insists on taking her home where he can keep her safe. Lexi had no idea “home” would mean the one-and-only land of creation…or that she’d trigger a prophecy that could doom her newfound race.
The World Is a Narrow Bridge
Aaron Thier - 2018
Eternity, a darkly comic road novel about a millennial couple facing the ultimate question: how to live and love in an age of catastrophe.Young Miami couple Murphy and Eva have almost decided to have a baby when Yahweh, the Old Testament God, appears to Eva and makes an unwelcome demand: He wants her to be his prophet. He also wants her to manage his social media presence.Yahweh sends the two on a wild road trip across the country, making incomprehensible demands and mandating arcane rituals as they go. He gives them a hundred million dollars, but he asks them to use it to build a temple on top of a landfill. He forces them to endure a period of Biblical wandering in the deserts of the southwest. Along the way they are continually mistaken for another couple, a pair of North Carolina society people, and find themselves attending increasingly bizarre events in their names. At odds with their mission but helpless to disobey, Murphy and Eva search their surroundings for signs of a future they can have faith in. Through wry observations about the biggest things—cosmology and theology—and the smallest things—the joys and irritations of daily life—Thier questions the mysterious forces that shape our fates, and wonders how much free will we really have. Equal parts hilarious and poignant, The World Is a Narrow Bridge asks: What kind of hope can we pass on to the next generation in a frightening but beautiful world?
Sixty-One Nails
Mike Shevdon - 2009
A dark magic will be unleashed by the Untainted...Unless a new hero can be found. Neverwhere's faster, smarter brother has arrived.Sixty-One Nails follows Niall Petersen, from a suspected heart attack on the London Underground, into the hidden world of the Feyre, an uncanny place of legend that lurks just beyond the surface of everyday life. The Untainted, the darkest of the Seven Courts, have made their play for power, and unless Niall can recreate the ritual of the Sixty-One Nails, their dark dominion will enslave all of the Feyre, and all of humankind too.
Gifted
H.A. Swain - 2016
Instead, procedures to induce Acquired Savant Abilities (ASAs) are now purchased by the privileged. And Orpheus's father holds the copyright to the ASA procedure.Zimri Robinson, a natural musical prodigy, is a "plebe"--a worker at the enormous warehouse that supplies an on-line marketplace that has supplanted all commerce. Her grueling schedule and her grandmother's illness can't keep her from making music--even if it is illegal.Orpheus and Zimri are not supposed to meet. He is meant for greatness; she is not. But sometimes, rules are meant to be broken. Here is a thriller, love story, and social experiment that readers will find gripping--and terrifying.
Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora
Zelda KnightRafeeat Aliyu - 2020
An old god rises up each fall to test his subjects. Once an old woman’s pet, a robot sent to mine an asteroid faces an existential crisis. A magician and his son time-travel to Ngoni country and try to change the course of history. A dead child returns to haunt his grieving mother with terrifying consequences. Candace, an ambitious middle manager, is handed a project that will force her to confront the ethical ramifications of her company’s latest project—the monetization of human memory. Osupa, a newborn village in pre-colonial Yorubaland populated by refugees of war, is recovering after a great storm when a young man and woman are struck by lightning, causing three priests to divine the coming intrusion of a titanic object from beyond the sky.A magician teams up with a disgruntled civil servant to find his missing wand. A taboo error in a black market trade brings a man face-to-face with his deceased father—literally. The death of a King sets off a chain of events that ensnare a trickster, an insane killing machine, and a princess, threatening to upend their post-apocalyptic world. Africa is caught in the tug-of-war between two warring Chinas, and for Ibrahim torn between the lashings of his soul and the pain of the world around him, what will emerge? When the Goddess of Vengeance locates the souls of her stolen believers, she comes to a midwestern town with a terrible past, seeking the darkest reparations. In a post-apocalyptic world devastated by nuclear war, survivors gather in Ife-Iyoku, the spiritual capital of the ancient Oyo Empire, where they are altered in fantastic ways by its magic and power.